In a joint effort by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Delta Air Lines, the detailed inspection, destructive evaluation, and extended fatigue testing of fuselage structure from a retired revenue-service passenger airplane was undertaken. Eleven large sections of fuselage representative of structure susceptible to widespread fatigue damage were removed from a retired Boeing 727-232 airplane near its design service goal of 60,000 flight cycles. Primary focus was the lap joints. Both conventional and emerging nondestructive inspection (NDI) methods were used for inspections before and after the sections were removed. A procedure was developed to disassemble joints and reveal crack surfaces at fastener holes. Using this procedure, seven panels were destructively evaluated to characterize the state of multiple-site damage using fractographic examinations. Crack information obtained from the destructive evaluations was used to assess the capability of 20 NDI methods to find small hidden cracks. For two panels, the state of damage was advanced through extended fatigue testing using the FAA Full-Scale Aircraft Structural Test Evaluation and Research facility, and crack growth was continuously assessed through both conventional and emerging NDI methods. The research program provides data to enable calibration and validation of predictive methodologies for structural fatigue and serves as a test bed to evaluate the sensitivity and effectiveness of standard and emerging NDI to detect small cracks hidden in built-up structural joints.
Destructive Evaluation and Extended Fatigue Testing of Retired Transport Aircraft. Volume 1: Program Overview
2007
308 pages
Report
Keine Angabe
Englisch
Aircraft , Quality Control & Reliability , Joining , Nondestructive Testing , Transport aircraft , Fatigue tests(Mechanics) , Nondestructive testing , Crack propagation , Fuselages , Damage , Inspection , Joints , Fasteners , Teardown , Passenger aircraft , Test and evaluation , Calibration , Validation , Methodology , Research program
Destructive Evaluation and Extended Fatigue Testing of Retired Aircraft Fuselage Structure
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2005
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